'How I met Your Mother' Season 8 Finale: The Mother is Revealed... through Facebook.

Read the title first, then read the rest of this.

Why was the finale disappointing?
I have many reason. First, it was too short to be considered a finale - it lacked traumatic experiences, drama, and the funny lines weren't even that hilarious. Second - and this take a huge bite out of episode for me - was that I ALREADY KNEW WHO THE MOTHER WAS prior to watching it.

How, you ask?
Because of Facebook.
Yes, that's right - Facebook told me.

Because heaven forbid I like a show so much that I actually 'liked' the page for it on Facebook, not knowing that hours later the official facebook page thought it would be perfectly alright to post a picture of the mother and caption it with: "A secret 8 years in the making! You just met... wait for it... the mother! Like this post if you were surprised!"

Well, no shit I was surprised.
I didn't even need to watch the show to figure it out, apparently.
Now, I normally watch the show a day later because I don't have access to the TV and I'd rather download the episode online later. But I do check my facebook regularly, which apparently was a bad move on my part. 

  Regardless, Cristin Milioti will be playing the role of 'the mother' in season 9 of this very long series. I'd have to say that after 8 seasons, HIMYM has really needed a break. The last good episode I watched was Episode 13 of Season 8, because I really connected with that rooftop scene with Ted and Lily and it made me cry.
 

 So, thank you HIMYM Facebook page.
Why don't you just summarize the entire episodes of season 9 for me as well?
Needless to say, I'm pretty peeved at this situation.

At least have the decency to think about your other viewers. You know... the ones that have to go to work and wait a week to watch you show.
Either than, or learn to put in SPOILER ALERTS before posting your damned spoilers.

Iron Man 3 Review

First off, let me start off by saying that I loved the first Iron Man movie. 
 
While I share no particular craze for Robert Downey Jr. as an actor, I did feel like he's done a good job in portraying Tony Stark's snarky attitude down to the tee, especially in the first Iron Man and the Avengers. If he wasn't starring as the main hero in this movie, everything might as well fall apart. I'm not one for recasting in movies.
 
In any case, I went to see the legendary third installment for the Iron Man trilogy, in 3D no less. And let me just stop here to say that seeing the movie in 3D was no intentional. It was only being offered in 3D so I had no choice. I'm don't buy into the 3D gimmick, and I certainly don't enjoy watching things in anything other than 2D.
 
Perhaps having to put 3D glasses on top of my regular glasses made me a little cranky from the start. Having the 3D effects dance obviously before my face for the first ten minutes was nice, but for the remainder of the movie it was barely recognizable. I'm surprised I didn't bother trying to take off my damn plastic glasses to watch the movie like a normal person.
But I digress. Onto the actual move review.
 
In this thrilling third movie, Tony Stark has to save the world again, which is no surprise for a superhero movie. Everyone knows the basic formula for these things. The only thing that makes Iron Man different is that Tony Stark is a sarcastic, rich, flaunting tech-genius. His snide remarks and jokes make every movie that Iron Man shows up in very enjoyable, and his character has since been written admirably.
 

So what the hell happened to him in this movie? The sarcastic, snide remarks are cut down to a minimum, and none of them are really that funny. It's like they used up all the good jokes during the filming of the Avengers. Furthermore, Stark's sense of humor has been substituted by that of a frantic, nervous wreck who barely knows what he's doing anymore. Iron Man 3, sadly, is just that last squeeze for the franchise before it has become a empty tube.
 
I mean, having the Mandarin be the main villain for the movie was very intriguing. However, Tony's become a unstable insomniac who has been hit with a extreme case of anxiety, apparently due to his close brush with death during the Avengers. While I realize that this is a chance to make Stark seem more human and emotional, the movie is nowhere near in portraying Stark as having an actual mid-life existential crisis. They introduce that he has panic attacks sometimes, but they never state why it is so significant. I mean, Tony Stark has been clashing with death since the first damn movie. What makes this so different?
 
If they wanted to make his mental status a bit jaded and dark, I'd say they should've taken a page or two out of the Dark Knight Rises. Meanwhile, Stark's mental illness is subsequently brushed under the doormat by the end of the movie, leaving you to wonder, 'what the hell did I just watch?”
It feels like nothing of huge significance was resolved. By the end of the Mandarin's demise, you still feel incomplete and unfulfilled, like the movie built up all this rising action but failed to deliver to final blow to tie up the loose ends. The Mandarin, in terms of a villain, was a disappointment. He had no memorable or significant lines, no spectacular powers, and no clear and powerful motive that served enough to get me intrigued in his character. He didn't seem that strong, and Tony only lost time and time again because he was too busy wallowing in his panic attacks and creating cheap clones of the original Iron Man, which would later explode into fireworks anyway.
 
That being said, I must say that the only thing that made my eyes perk up in alert were the scenes Tony had with the young boy, Harley, who helps Tony fix his broken-down superhero suit and is later awarded when Stark finally gets himself together and 'fixes everything'.
 
Another welcome change in the series includes Pepper Potts' role. She gets into one of the suits and actually saves Tony, which is nice for once, and at the end she even saves him again with powers of her own, albeit her powers were forcefully given to her.
At the bottom line, Iron Man 3 really did not pack much of a punch and despite attempts at jokes and explosive displays, nothings struck me as spectacular or particularly lively and creative. The humor did not make me crack out laughing, and the action did not have me clutching to the arms of my chair. While the movie ends off predictably serene with a sense of finality, you can't help but wonder if the entire movie had any substance to begin with.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10